moving, but with long delays. Before I reached the home of my wife’s relatives,
I had to take cover in a gateway two or three times when an alarm was
sounded by the factory sirens [4] and on the radio. My relatives’ first question
was where I had left my wife and child, and they demanded categorically that
I go back immediately and bring them home to Łódź the next day, Saturday.
Around 5 o’clock in the evening, I began looking for a way to get back to my
family. It was already hard to get the suburban tram, but I heard that it was
still possible to travel back on the Kalisz bus. And that’s what I did. I managed
to catch the last bus, and around 9 p.m. I was back in the village at my
summer place. A dead silence reigned throughout the journey from Łódź to
Kolumna. The night was quite warm and light. All around, there was not
a spark of fire to be seen. It was only at the crossroads that the blue flames
from the guards’ lamps were visible as they checked passers-by quickly and
silently. The mood of the Poles was already very subdued. I happened to travel
on the same bus as a Polish shopkeeper, who began cursing the Germans in
a very agitated voice and did not spare his epithets against the Polish army,
for preparing for war in such a shlimazldik³⁹ fashion.
In the village itself, the same deathly silence reigned. The windows were
completely covered with blankets or black paper so that not a single ray of
light might escape. I told my wife how amazed I was that everything had happened
in the space of a single Friday [. . .] to carry out everything. We decided
that the next day, Saturday morning, we would be ready with all our belongings
packed to leave the village on a peasant’s cart. With heavy hearts and in
a sombre mood, we began to pack late into the night.
[1] (b) Memories of the recent past. Łódź.
On Tuesday, early in the morning of 12 December 1939, the whole town
learned that there had been many arrests of the Jewish and Polish intelligentsia,
especially teachers.⁴⁰ The German authorities posted brief notices in
the str eets (on red paper) stating that for the security of the entire population,
elements who constituted a threat to peace and order had been removed
39 (Yiddish) lame, hapless, feeble.
40 Those arrests were conducted within the framework of the Intelligenzaktion. See Introduction.
